In the field of medicine, modern techniques have been developed for diagnosing damage to the interior structure of a living body. One such technique is arthroscopy, which is most commonly used to examine the interior structure of bone joints, such as the knee joint, and to determine the existence and extent of any damage in the joint. A significant advantage of arthroscopy is that it permits internal viewing of the body joint without requiring conventional invasive surgery to externally expose the joint. Furthermore if joint damage is discovered during the examination, relatively non-invasive corrective surgery can be performed in conjunction with the arthroscopic examination to repair the joint damage.
Arthroscopic examination employs a device termed an arthroscope having a probe and an imaging device that cooperate with a video display. In operation, the probe is inserted into the joint being examined while it is connected to the imaging device which in turn communicates with the video display, thereby generating a picture of the interior structure of the joint. Consequently, the operator of the arthroscope is able to view, real-time, the interior structure of the joint while the probe is in place in the joint. This enables rapid diagnosis of any damage to the joint and the prescription of appropriate treatment.
Due to strict performance requirements, particularly with respect to image quality and field of viewing, arthroscopes require a high degree of precision and, thus, are extremely costly to manufacture. It is, therefore, a virtual economic necessity that arthroscopes accommodate reuse. Accordingly, reusable arthroscopes, and particularly the probe, must be sterilized before each use to prevent infection of the patient with a contaminated needle. Nevertheless, the possibility exists for improper sterilization of the needle assemblies, or even for recontamination of the needle assemblies during handling following sterilization, either of which could infect the patient.
An optimal solution to the problem of patient infection would be to employ prepackaged sterile non-reusable arthroscopes in all arthroscopic procedures. Unfortunately no known method exists for manufacturing an arthroscope, which can be cost-effectively disposed after a single use, yet which meets the strict performance requirements for arthroscopic procedures.
As such, it is an object of the present invention to provide a cost-effective method for manufacturing interchangeable arthroscopic needle assemblies that are disposable after each use. It is further an object of the present invention to provide a method for manufacturing disposable arthroscopic needle assemblies that meet or exceed the performance requirements for known arthroscopic procedures.